Between the Crosses, Row on Row
by FallenPride
Summary: S: "'He still dreams about the future, you know,' Ruby said." Gen. Dean, Sam, Ruby.


**Beta:** dreamboat_kicks**  
Rating:** PG13**  
Characters:** Dean, Sam, Ruby**  
Genre:** Gen.**  
Word Count:** 1800**  
Warnings:** Spoilers up to 4x10 and then takes a merry trip into AU. I've also taken a few minor liberties regarding Sam's visions. A few bad words.**  
Notes:** I wrote this in response to a Post-Secret created by charlie_d_blue(LJ). My undying gratitude to dreamboat_kicks for all the hard work she put into getting this story into shape. I honestly don't know what I would have done without you! Any mistakes remaining are mine. This is only my second SPN fic, the first I've put up here.

* * *

***

"You should wake him up."

Dean's head snapped around to glare in Ruby's direction. "What the Hell are you talking about?" he demanded.

* * *

***

There's something you gotta understand about all this.

We never signed up for a war.

We got drafted near the end. Field promotions coming in faster then the orders.

They were telling me to make choices. Said I had to pick and choose.

Good against Evil. Light versus Dark.

They didn't understand. Couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that there had never been a choice to make.

Not for me.

There was Sam.

Or there was nothing.

* * *

***

"He's having a nightmare," Ruby answered.

Dean's attention turned from Ruby to where Sam was sprawled out across one of the beds. "Doesn't look like a nightmare to me," Dean said. When Sam's hips curled down into the mattress under him, a soft moan filling the silence, Dean added, "Looks like he's finally getting some."

Ruby's attention never wavered from his brother. "He'll call it a nightmare when he wakes up."

* * *

***

Sam's visions stopped when Dean made his deal and brought him back from the dead. His talents pushed so far back inside him it was like they had never been. A hollow place left in his chest where they used to be.

Sam had given up on normal

This was his second chance to get things right.

Three-hundred and sixty-four days before Dean's marker got called.

* * *

***

"Are you using some kind of demon power to see into Sammy's head right now?" Dean demanded suspiciously. "'Cause if you are, you'd better stop."

"I'm not looking into his dream," Ruby answered. The offended tone of her voice sounded a little off, like she was play acting the emotion for Dean's benefit, but not really putting the effort into her response.

* * *

***

Anna told me that in all of creation only four angels have ever actually seen God. They took His existence as an act of faith. The reason Lucifer fell was a lack of faith.

The tally now reads: four angels, one human.

Seems kind of strange, doesn't it? That God would hide Himself away like that. It would probably confuse the shit outta the rest of the world. I know Sammy couldn't understand.

There is a very simple -- very good -- reason only four angels have encountered God.

God's a fucking nut job.

He couldn't have cared less about what was happening on Earth. When I asked Him what He was going to do about the world going to Hell in a hand basket He got this funny look on His face.

All cranky and annoyed.

Said, "I'll just start over if that happens

* * *

***

Dean leaned back in the chair he'd taken when they got to the motel room and regarded Ruby for a moment before asking, "How're you so sure it's a nightmare he's having?"

"Because he told me," Ruby answered him.

Leaning forward he demanded, "Told you what?"

* * *

***

Sam's gifts and powers didn't just disappear.

He was not that lucky.

The visions never came back, though. They'd served their one time purpose. But in their place a more involuntary talent emerged, just to the left of repression and denial.

Prophetic dreaming.

The visions had always been about small events that Sam had some power to change, or prevent. The dreams had an inevitable feel to them. Like it didn't matter what Sam did, the path had been set, and nothing was going to change what he saw.

For the longest time, he thought they were just a strange type of nightmare. Which wasn't really that odd considering the kind of life he lived. So he'd never bothered to mention them to Dean.

It wasn't until Dean was dead and buried and Sam was beginning to dry out that he finally said something about them. And that's when Ruby pointed out that they weren't nightmares, that he had to be afraid of them in some way before they qualified.

Not wake up with a hard on, horny as hell.

The power would cling to him after he woke up. Like hands and mouths and slick, wet, heat. Left him gasping and aching, body arching off the bed, blood singing through his veins chanting, _close, close, so close…_

He would wake up desperate for relief, sitting right on the edge of too much and not nearly enough. And Ruby would be right there.

It wasn't love or desire. Wasn't even a case of lust.

The power always wanted _more_.

* * *

***

"What he dreams," Ruby responded distractedly.

Sam had curled up on to his side, hips shifting suggestively under the blankets.

"Yeah? What'd he tell you about those dreams?" Dean asked. He didn't even try to keep the annoyed undercurrent from his words. "That he's banging some ugly chick and liking it?"

That got a response from Ruby. She turned a slightly disgusted frown in his direction. "'Cause, sister, let me tell you something, man don't make sounds like that when it's a nightmare."

Sam made a soft whimpering noise in the back of his throat. And Christ, Dean had heard Sammy having sex enough times to know he was getting off on whatever it was he was dreaming about. "Wet dream, maybe." And that didn't do anything for the blush creeping up his throat.

* * *

***

We were screwed even before the final war started.

See, Lilith was breaking the Seals. She'd dedicated her entire zealous being to the task. And then Castiel came and got me out of Hell.

Thing we'd all forgot to remember was to count the Seals that had got broke before Lilith came along.

* * *

***

"Believe what you want, Dean," she sneered at him "But what Sam's dreaming isn't something he wants. Not really."

"How do you know so much about Sam's dreams?" Dean asked after a moment of silence. "And don't just say he told you. Even I know that isn't the truth."

Sam sighed softly into his pillow when Ruby said, "He _showed_ me, once."

* * *

***

Dean was always there. Sometimes walking next to him, sometimes just a pace or two behind. And Ruby was always in the background.

Faces, bodies, lined the sides of the road; always the same. The black eyes of demons following his procession, blank gazes of the dead staring forever forward.

Ash falls from a dull sky.

The world is silent around them.

* * *

***

"Like dream walking?" Dean asked curiously.

"There are other ways to enter someone's dreams aside from addictive plants," she explained. "Easier too, considering how powerful your brother actually is."

And Dean didn't really want to think about that. Didn't like to think about Sammy and his demon blood and how that made his brother different. How it set him into the same category as things they hunted. But it wasn't something that he could actually ignore. Not when it was something that could keep Sammy safe.

"Demon blood resistance?" Dean asked.

That got a half smile from Ruby. "Something like that."

* * *

***

Only sixty-six Seals had to be broken.

Didn't matter who did the breaking.

Near the end, the demons realized that Lilith was worse than a lose canon. Realized she didn't give a flying fuck about creating Hell on Earth. That she had them all standing on the edge of complete destruction. Realized what would actually happen when they broke the last Seal.

They turned on her then.

Sixty-five Seals gone and almost every one of them turned on her.

And as scary as that little bitch was, she'd relied a little too much on fear to control her followers. When they found something they feared more, there wasn't anything she could do. Because even demons wanted the world to continue.

They didn't want to see what would happen when God finally took notice of what was happening in His little playground. Because the Devil was the only angel to question _why_ and Lilith wanted God to answer her Master's question.

Their loyalties flipped. Moved from Lilith to Sam.

Self-preservation.

They picked the leader who had a more stable hold on reality.

And then Sam went and did something he said was necessary and logical.

But oh, so stupid.

* * *

***

They were quiet for a few minutes. Just watching Sammy sleep. It was the first time in weeks that they weren't chasing after another case. The winter storm had them snowed into the motel room until the ploughs had cleared out the roads.

The flickering lights from the muted TV shifted the shadows in the room that hadn't been forced back by the small desk lamp Dean was using. Sam seemed completely oblivious to the serious conversation taking place about him not a handful of feet away.

"You think it's a nightmare?" Dean asked softly into that stillness.

For reasons Dean didn't really want to explore, he'd actually come to trust some of Ruby judgements about his brother. It wasn't something he particularly liked, but she'd been the one to get Sam sober when he was in Hell. She'd been the one to keep his brother from getting himself killed.

Little as he liked it, Ruby's opinion on something like this mattered. Because Sammy hadn't even mentioned that he'd been having nightmares to Dean. But he'd said something to Ruby.

"Doesn't matter what I think," she said

And that threw Dean.

* * *

***

Jesus wore a crown of thorns when he was put up on the cross.

In his dream, Sam had built his throne from the bones of his enemies.

The bones of Hunters bleached and carefully reassembled.

Dean is kneeling next to him, forehead pressed to Sam's thigh.

In the distance, the world is burning

* * *

***

For a moment, Dean wasn't sure how to respond. It was the first time he'd ever asked for an honest opinion from Ruby where his brother was concerned. Asked like what she had to say mattered. And she'd practically jerked herself away from giving him an answer.

"You've seen his dream," Dean tried. "Do you think whatever he's dreaming is really a nightmare?"

Dean watched Ruby duck her head nervously. Watched as she tried to avoid eye contact and make herself appear small and insignificant. Dean had never actually seen a woman do something like that outside of a movie or TV show set in like the middle ages. It drove home, for just a heartbeat, how old Ruby probably was.

* * *

***

Sam went and made himself the last Seal.

The Boy King who burned the world to save it.

* * *

***

"He still dreams about the future, you know," Ruby finally answered. "He told me while you were in hell… He never tells you because all he sees… All he sees are flames and ashes… And a throne."


End file.
